1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method and system for providing improving interaction between systems management systems and their respective distributed applications running in networked computer systems. In particular, the present invention relates to a method and system for providing an improved consistency between systems management systems and their respective distributed applications.
2. Prior Art
The subject matter of the present invention is applicable to a broad variety of applications, i.e. whenever the availability of an application is monitored by systems management systems, further referred to as SMSs.
It is particularly applicable for applications having a distributed nature and running in a distributed environment on a plurality of workstations hosting some copy of said distributed application.
Further, workflow management systems, referred to herein as WFMSs, are very preferred objects for being subjected to the improvements of the present invention. But basically, every system which is able to be described with the basic structure and terminology of workflow management systems, further referred to as WFMSs herein, can advantageously be improved by applying the method according to the invention. For the single reason of clear terminology, and thus improved clarity, the present invention will be disclosed herein in detail applied to WFMSs and with the terminology of SMS of Tivoli Systems Inc.
A new area of technology with increasing importance is the domain of Workflow-Management-Systems (WFMS). WFMS support the modeling and execution of business processes. Business processes control which piece of work of a network of pieces of work will be performed by whom and which resources are exploited for this work, i.e. a business process describes how an enterprise will achieve its business goals. The individual pieces of work might be distributed across a multitude of different computer systems connected by some type of network.
The process of designing, developing and manufacturing a new product and the process of changing or adapting an existing product presents many challenges to product managers and engineers to bring the product to market for the least cost and within schedule while maintaining or even increasing product quality. Many companies are realizing that the conventional product design process is not satisfactory to meet these needs. They require early involvement of manufacturing engineering, cost engineering, logistic planning, procurement, manufacturing, service and support with the design effort. Furthermore, they require planning and control of product data through design, release, and manufacturing.
The correct and efficient execution of business processes within a company, e.g. development or production processes, is of enormous importance for a company and has significant influence on a company""s overall success in the market place. Therefore, those processes have to be regarded similar as technology processes and have to be tested, optimized and monitored. The management of such processes is usually performed and supported by a computer based process or workflow management system.
In D. J. Spoon: xe2x80x9cProject Management Environmentxe2x80x9d, IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Vol. 32, No. 9A, February 1990, pages 250 to 254, a process management environment is described including an operating environment, data elements, and application functions and processes.
In R. T. Marshak: xe2x80x9cIBM FlowMark, Object-Oriented Workflow for Mission-Critical Applicationsxe2x80x9d, Workgroup Computing Report (USA), Vol. 17, No. 5, 1994, page 3 to 13, the object character of IBM FlowMark as a client/server product built on a true object model that is targeted for mission-critical production process application development and deployment is described.
In H. A. Inniss and J. H. Sheridan: xe2x80x9cWorkflow Management Based on an Object-Oriented Paradigmxe2x80x9d, IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Vol. 37, No. 3, March 1994, page 185, other aspects of object-oriented modeling on customization and changes are described.
In F. Leymann and D. Roller: xe2x80x9cBusiness Process Management with FlowMarkxe2x80x9d, Digest of papers, Cat. No. 94CH3414-0, Spring COMPCON 94, 1994, pages 230 to 234, the state-of-the-art computer process management tool IBM FlowMark is described. The meta model of IBM FlowMark is presented as well as the implementation of IBM FlowMark. The possibilities of IBM FlowMark for modeling of business processes as well as their execution are discussed. The product IBM FlowMark is available for different computer platforms and documentation for IBM FlowMark is available in every IBM branch.
In F. Leymann: xe2x80x9cA meta model to support the modeling and execution of processesxe2x80x9d, Proceedings of the 11th European Meeting on Cybernetics and System Research EMCR92, Vienna, Austria, Apr. 21 to 24, 1992, World Scientific 1992, pages 287 to 294, a meta model for controlling business processes is presented and discussed in detail.
The xe2x80x9cIBM FlowMark for OS/2xe2x80x9d, document number GH 19-8215-01, IBM Corporation, 1994, available in every IBM sales office, represents a typical modern, sophisticated, and powerful workflow management system. It supports the modeling of business processes as a network of activities; refer for instance to xe2x80x9cModeling Workflowxe2x80x9d, document number SH 19-8241, IBM Corporation, 1996. As further information on Workflow Management Systems available in IBM sales offices one could mention: IBM MQSeries Concepts and Architecture, document number GH 12-6285; IBM MQSeries Getting Started with Buildtime, document number SH 12-6286; IBM MQSeries Getting Started with Runtime, document number SH 12-6287. This network of activities, the process model, is constructed as a directed, acyclic, weighted, colored graph. The nodes of the graph represent the activities or workitems which are performed. The edges of the graph, the control connectors, describe the potential sequence of execution of the activities. Definition of the process graph is via the IBM FlowMark Definition Language (FDL) or the built-in graphical editor. The runtime component of the workflow manager interprets the process graph and distributes the execution of activities to the right person at the right place, e.g. by assigning tasks to a work list according to the respective person, wherein said work list is stored as digital data within said workflow or process management computer system.
In F. Leymann and W. Altenhuber: xe2x80x9cManaging business processes as an information resourcexe2x80x9d, IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 32(2), 1994, the mathematical theory underlying the IBM FlowMark product is described.
In D. Roller: xe2x80x9cVerifikation von Workflows in IBM FlowMarkxe2x80x9d, in J. Becker und G. Vossen (Hrsg.): xe2x80x9cGeschaeftsprozessmodellierung und Workflowsxe2x80x9d, International Thompson Publishing, 1995, the requirement and possibility of the verification of workflows is described. Furthermore the feature of graphical animation for verification of the process logic is presented as it is implemented withing the IBM FlowMark product.
For implementing a computer based process management system, firstly the business processes have to be analyzed and, as the result of this analysis, a process model has to be constructed as a network of activities corresponding to the business process. In the IBM FlowMark product, the process models are not transformed into an executable form. At run time, an instance of the process is created from the process model, called a process instance. This process instance is then interpreted dynamically by the IBM FlowMark product.
Generally speaking, workflow management, as for example implemented by IBM FlowMark, can be regarded as involving three dimensions.
The first dimension, the process logic dimension describes the actions to be performed, by whom they have to be performed, with which program they have to be performed, and in which sequence they have to be performed.
The second dimension describes the organizational structure, the people and the roles the people are playing.
The third dimension describes the information technology (IT) infrastructure, such as the workflow servers, and the workstations/programs used by the users.
The actual execution of a workflow is then a series of points in the three-dimensional workflow space. Each point represents the execution of an activity by one person at one computer using a particular program.
An application monitor is the part of an application that helps in monitoring the execution of the application. In workflow systems this component is called a process monitor. It tracks and controls the correct and timely execution of business processes. To achieve that, the process monitor controls that sufficient resources are assigned to the individual activities and makes sure that the activities are carried out in a pre-defined time. If out-of-line situations occur, administration people are notified so that the appropriate corrective actions can be taken.
A user typically interacts with the workflow management system via a graphical end user interface that represents the tasks to be performed by the user as icons. Work for a particular task is started by the user by double-clicking on the appropriate icon which in turn starts the program implementing the activity.
It is important for the productivity of users that the invoked programs complete as designed and that they are not terminating prematurely as the result of a program internal or even external event, such as the breaking of a communication link or the malfunctioning of the workflow system itself. The reason for the event to happen could be either hard or software failures. Unless the problem is fixed, users are prohibited for carrying out their duty efficiently. This indicates that the IT infrastructure is as important for the correct and efficient processing of workflow as is the organization which is monitored by the process monitor.
Said availability of systems including all hard- and software is controlled and monitored by said SMSS; that means the systems management system makes sure that the monitored systems are up and running and producing correct results. System in this context means the combination of hard- and software that performs a user-specified task, such as book keeping or loan processing. In general, a system is distributed, that means individual software components are running on different processors that are connected via communication lines.
When an error is detected, typically a message is sent to the systems management system""s enterprise console. This allows an operator to take appropriate actions; which actions need to be taken depends on some well in advance established procedures.
The view that the SMS""s enterprises console exhibits is that of a set of hardware components and pieces of software only. It has been recognized that this view is too limited and that in order to get the whole picture one has to look at it from a business process perspective.
TME-10, a state of the art SMS product sold by Tivoli Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of IBM Corporation, is used as the prototype of a SMS, that means its implementation and terminology, for discussing SMS properties is used herein.
It has been proposed for TME-10, whose basic structure and functions are described in more detail in the introductory section, to provide that business process perspective view as a higher level of abstraction.
This approach of presenting the managed hard- and software in a business process oriented view still has problems, however.
It only reflects the relation between the IT-infrastructure and the business processes and does not reflect other types of resources that are important for the processing of business processes, such as people working on the business processes.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a business process oriented view of both the organization and the information technology aspects together by providing a linkage between the systems management systems and the distributed applications, in particular by the WFMS. This combined view can be implemented in the systems management system""s enterprise console or in the application""s application monitor, for workflow systems in the process monitor.
The present invention proposes a method and system for providing an improved consistency between the SMS and the WFMS by a linkage between the two. A tight, integrative linkage is provided which can be established, managed and maintained automatically by the application, and particularly by the WFMS, or, alternatively by the SMS. This allows the provision of a consistent business process oriented view of the systems management system monitored resources, that means information technology resources, such as programs, and workflow management system monitored resources, that means organization resources, such as people. This is achieved by either of two ways:
Either, by enhancing the applications monitor in order to include the functionality of the enterprise console and taking profit from the merged information of both systems, the SMS and the WFMS; or
By enhancing the enterprise console in order to include the functionality of the WFMS""s process monitor and taking again profit from the merged information of both systems.
This linkage is implemented in the first alternative by establishing a notification mechanism in the SMS that informs the WFMS about all processing relevant information technology related events and by implementing in the WFMS a mechanism that understands the sent notifications and takes appropriate actions. The set of actions can range from a simple alert to operations people via the process monitor or an automatic rearrangement of staff so that the affected workflows can continue to operate.
For the second alternative, this linkage is provided by establishing a notification mechanism in the WFMS that informs the SMS about all processing relevant organization resource problems and by implementing in the SMS a mechanism that understands the sent notifications and provides the appropriate information via the SMS"" enterprise console.
Regardless of the chosen alternative, such a tight linkage allows to treat hard- and software errors as well as people resource problems as errors in the execution of business processes.
The method of the present invention has the advantage, in relation to the method sketched out in the discussion of prior art technique, that a very consistent combined view of both SMS and application program, in particular the WFMS, is generated.
Thus the process of handling errors is simplified and more complete since hard- or software failures and organizational resource problems are treated equally and are managed together.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the present method is applied to WFMSs. This extends the advantages mentioned above for those systems.